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Next Gen Workforce

NGen CEO, Jayson Myers, lays out organization’s efforts to attract manufacturing’s future workforce in DEX tradeshow keynote.

In September, at the Design Engineering Expo (DEX) in Hamilton, keynote speaker Jayson Myers addressed a pressing issue for Canada’s industrial sector: How to attract the next generation of manufacturing employees.

Myers is president of Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led, not-for-profit overseeing Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster. In addition to the $69.8 million the organization has invested in innovation project funding over its history, NGen also dedicates resources to challenge programs, such as its past COVID Rapid Response and current AI for Manufacturing challenges, as well its NGen Skills Hub for workforce development. Originally geared toward existing professionals, the hub has recently added a program to attract students toward a career in manufacturing.

And the need is considerable, Myers emphasized in his keynote. While skill shortages have been a chronic problem across many industries, Myers said manufacturing is also facing a significant labor shortage, especially following the pandemic.

To quantify the problem, he laid out some sobering statistics. For example, 25 percent of Canada’s manufacturing workforce will retire by 2030; however, people under 30 account for only 5% of the industry’s workers in Canada. As a result, he said manufacturers will need to boost productivity by more than 2% per year (double the rate of the last 30 years) to maintain current production levels.

Exhibitors setting up for the Sept 2022 DEX/MRO Expo in Hamilton, ON.

Jayson Myers, CEO of NGen Photo: NGen

To help address these shortages, NGen launched a multimedia campaign in 2021 called Careers of the Future. The campaign, via its CareersoftheFuture.ca website, focuses on outreach to schools to educate teachers, students and their parents about advanced manufacturing. Intended as an online resource, the site illustrates the growing and hightech nature of today’s advanced manufacturing careers.

“We have done a lot of work to showcase what advanced manufacturing is about; that it isn’t the repetitive, dirty and dangerous assembly jobs that people think of, and, in fact, that smokestack stereotype is 30 to 40 years out of date in most cases,” Myers said.

“At the same time, the promise of using high tech isn’t sufficient to attract young people,” he added. “They already use technology and the industries that manufacturing competes with for talent all use digital tools. So the challenge is showing what makes manufacturing stand out.”

To accomplish that, Myers said NGen’s campaign focuses on demonstrating the industry’s ability to impact world’s biggest challenges, such as climate change, food and water security, health and safety. Beyond the website, Myers said NGen has also explored the online spaces the campaign’s target audience regularly visit, including Tik Tok and social platforms associated with computer gaming.

To date, the site has attracted 35 million views across Canada and 365,000 engaged site visits. Of those, 51% were male and 49% female. More encouraging, Myers said, is that 60% of students and parents surveyed about the program say they now have a positive view of advanced manufacturing and 87% of students say they can see themselves working in the sector. | DE

www.CareersoftheFuture.ca